OLYMPIA — What one expert called the first bill of its kind on domestic violence cleared a major hurdle last week, passing out of committee in the Washington state House of Representatives.
State Rep. Lauren Davis, D-Shoreline, used her personal experience to create House Bill 1715, aiming to enhance existing services and protections for domestic violence victims. Diane Rosenfeld, founding director of the Gender Violence Program at Harvard Law School, called it “the most thorough, original and comprehensive piece of legislation” she has ever seen.
“This bill rests on this notion that is also backed by 25 years of research that domestic homicide is preventable,” Davis said. “It is predictable and therefore preventable, and DV homicide is actually the most predictable form of homicide.”
The main components of the bill include starting up a lethality assessment hotline, strengthening civil protection orders, expanding GPS monitoring of offenders across the state, and creating a right to counsel for low-income survivors.
The bill also calls for further restricting offenders from having firearms and other weapons, establishing a statewide domestic violence prosecutor and expanding law enforcement training on the issue. And it proposes creating a research center at the University of Washington and an ombuds office for domestic violence.
Early estimates suggest the bill would cost up to about $9 million per year.
Davis’ bill joins a spate of proposals in the Legislature meant to tackle domestic violence, including legislation that would issue emergency domestic violence no-contact orders, create a victim-centered response in the legal system, and reduce gun and gender violence harm.
In the committee voting session for the bill, Rep. Jenny Graham, R-Spokane, the lone no vote, said she opposed the bill because her concerns about restricting firearms were not amended.
“As a victim of domestic violence and a survivor of abuse and violent crime, I know firsthand what it means to be fearful of a close family member,” Graham said. “But I also know how accusations can be weaponized. We need to protect the rights of all individuals, including the accused.”
Davis said she spent 217 days hiding in more than a dozen safe houses last year to escape her ex-boyfriend, prominent lobbyist Cody Arledge. He was barred from the Capitol after a judge ruled he stalked the state representative.
“I am a white, educated, English-speaking woman. I have every privilege in the world, and yet our system failed me,” Davis said. “Over and over again. I’ve spent the last 18 months careening through every part of our state’s domestic violence system.”
She is concerned other women, particularly those who don’t have the same privileges and access to resources as her, won’t escape with their lives.
According to data provided by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, 2022 saw the most domestic violence deaths in 25 years. A spokesperson said domestic violence is the most charged crime in the state’s most populous county, making up at least a quarter of all charges in the past six months.
The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs reported more than 60,000 domestic violence incidents statewide in 2021, nearly half of all crimes against people that year.
Davis’ proposed lethality assessment hotline would evaluate how likely a person could be killed in a domestic violence situation, ranging from “low” to “extreme.” For example, the assessment would factor whether a person told their partner they’re leaving them and if their partner has guns.
Those scores then would be sent to courts and law enforcement agencies. In addition, new high-risk teams, who handle the hotline, would identify and monitor the most dangerous cases where a person faces the threat of serious injury or death. Those teams would help coordinate a response and connect people with resources.
The assessments could help prioritize civil protection orders.
According to court records, more than 7,000 civil protection orders were filed in 2021 at the district, state, county and municipal courts. They’re meant to restrict contact between a victim and an offender, including banning the offender from the victim’s residence, workplace or school, and requiring them to maintain a minimum distance. But often, Davis said, there can be some delay in sending those orders to authorities and serving them to the respondent.
Her bill would require courts to get protection orders to law enforcement the same day they are issued — rather than by the next court day — and have police attempt to serve them within 24 hours, unless an emergency makes that infeasible. Situations that have been given a “high lethality designation” would get higher priority.
Davis’ bill would also require GPS tracking of offenders be made available as a tool in all jurisdictions throughout the state. The trackers would notify police and victims through a mobile app if a protection order’s minimum distance is violated.
The GPS devices were initially coded into law after Tiffany Hill was killed by her husband in Clark County, but so far few courts mandate them because of costs.
Clark County Deputy Prosecutor Taylor Knight, the coordinator for the office’s Domestic Violence Prosecution Center unit, said 40 GPS devices now are being used in Clark County. King County also uses them.
Another component of the bill seeks to provide funding to help low-income people pay for protection order proceedings and create a list of attorneys to represent their cases.
Refugee Women’s Alliance Domestic Violence Program Director Carlin Yoophum said there are more barriers for refugee and immigrant domestic violence victims and survivors. They might not be able to speak English, or know how to navigate the courts in a new country. Yoophum said at least a third of people seeking services with the Alliance don’t go through the legal system, usually out of fear of what the consequences might be.
The organization handled more than 700 domestic violence cases in 2022, Executive Director Mahnaz Eshetu said. She said she supported Davis’ legislation.
“I think it is very important because it helps our clients to move forward with their petition and all the legal proceedings,” Eshetu said about creating more support for low-income domestic violence victims and survivors.
By proposing the legislation, Davis said she is flipping her narrative, writing down every pitfall from her journey with the system to make sure other survivors won’t share the same problems.
“Something shifted in me, then I pivoted from victim to survivor,” Davis said at the hearing for her bill. “I was ready to fight for my life.”
